


Red Hair

by secretlydickgrayson



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Temporary Character Death, F/M, Jason is Dick's Soulmate, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlydickgrayson/pseuds/secretlydickgrayson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the tumblr prompt "au where you have a stripe of your soulmates haircolor on your wrist and if they dye their hair your stripe changes colors" by groanlester</p><p>I ended up writing it so that the streaks are in the soulmates' hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is just a little one-shot I wrote last night in between working on Flowers and Ink with Robin! Enjoy! -- Wing

Dick Grayson has a thing for gingers. It’s a proven fact, and if it has a bit to do with the stripe of red in his hair, well that’s just his luck that he has a smaller dating pool. Because sure, he wants to find his soulmate someday. Doesn't everyone? But in the meantime it scares the crap out of him. And if he checks everyone's hair from Wally West to Roy Harper to any redheads he passes on the street, that's his business.

Then he does something stupid like go and fall for Kory, and she doesn't even have a streak in her hair because whatever magic was in the gene pool way back at the dawn of man didn't happen to her. The rules are different. Maybe the magic's wrong. 

The kid Bruce takes in has red hair, and Dick never really bothers to check the shade because he’s just a kid, and Dick is done with living in the shadow of the Bat, honest. Until one day the Titans all gape at him, because his red streak is slowly fading in to match the rest of his hair. It ends up a shade or so different, a little browner of a black than his, and he still knows its boundaries without looking. Kory doesn’t cry, and Dick still loves her. Her hair was always the wrong shade anyway. 

He feels like all the air’s been kicked out of him when he finds out there’s a new Robin. Because it’s Jason, it has to be, but he’s got black hair now. Sure, the kid had a black stripe in his red hair before, but it’s not like black hair is rare. It never crossed Dick’s mind that Jason could be the one. Dick doesn’t know what to do, because this matters too much to fuck up. So Dick gives him his old uniform, like some ineffectual benediction, and hopes it’s enough until he knows what else to say. 

When Jason dies, Dick doesn’t sleep for days. He curls up on his bed in the dark, running his soulmate stripe through his fingers. Regretting everything he never said. Believing he could have saved him. Kory understands that he doesn’t know what anything means anymore. 

Time passes. He loves Babs. They know from the start that they’re doomed, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. Just because they’re doomed doesn’t mean part of them won’t always love each other, even if it’s not in the way they originally wanted. No one’s meant for him anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try, and if Babs ever catches him twirling Jason’s streak around and around his fingers, she just holds him that much tighter. 

He’s brushing his teeth when a tiny sliver of his soulmate stripe turns white. Babs finds him on the floor, laughing and crying. She can’t bring herself to be anything but happy, because they knew they were doomed and this doesn’t change a damn thing about how  _much_  he loves her, just the way he does. She helps him pack. 

 _“Bruce? Jason’s alive. I don’t know where, or how, or anything. I don’t_ care _that I don’t know. He’s mine, and I’m gonna find him.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh guys sorry this has taken me so long... I've had at least three mental breakdowns, fucked up my sleep schedule beyond recognition twice, and my computer crashed so I'm currently typing on a piece of crap that might be older than one of my brothers. BUT I have returned. And will try to be less horrible. -- Wing

His name is Jason Todd, and he is a weapon. And weapons do not love, or have time for things like soulmates. 

He still dyes his hair black. There’s a stubborn streak of white at the front that refuses to take the dye, and next to it there’s a streak that’s just a bit darker than the rest. He doesn’t even think about how it must be showing up in his sodulmate’s hair. Because he doesn’t need one. He needs closure, revenge. Needs to fix the world. Love doesn’t enter the equation. 

He used to feel...something. He remembers when he first realized what Dick Grayson’s hair looked like. He always covered the red streak on patrol, but it was in all the old pictures around the manor. When he came home for dinners or weekends, it was just black. But plenty of people dyed their hair once. It didn’t mean anything, least of all that Dick was his. It didn’t stop him from dreaming. 

He watched Dick flip around on the rooftops sometimes. He blamed it on puberty or some adolescent crush, and he looked at the old pictures and tried to remember exactly what color his hair was before he dyed it. But now he barely remembers those dreams. 

He realizes he has a tail somewhere in Germany. They know what they’re doing, always staying just out of sight. The style reminds him of Bruce, but Bruce is still in Gotham. He shakes them in China, and doesn’t notice anything for weeks. 

It’s back in Gotham that he’s being followed again. He still has to remind himself not to call it home, because weapons don’t have homes. He knows full well that the Pit’s still in his brain, turning himself into something different, something sharper, but he doesn’t care. He needs some kind of closure, and if closure is Bruce’s body in a thousand pieces, then so be it. 

There are hands on his when he goes to set the bomb. Gentle hands. 

“Little wing.” 

He’d know that voice anywhere. He’d have let it guide him home in the dark in the old days, but this isn’t the old days. 

“Nightwing.” Jason almost snarls the words. He pulls away from the touch and unsheathes a knife. “This isn’t your fight.” 

“You’re here. So it is now.” He can’t see Dick’s eyes behind the lenses, but he can hear the tears in his voice. Dick reaches up to put a hand on Jason’s cheek. Jason flinches, but still leans into the touch. “You’re alive. You’re whole. I’ve been looking for so long.” 

“I’m dead. That’s when you stop looking.” 

Dick smiles, reaches up to his forehead and points to the sliver of white in his hair.

“You’re alive. And you’re mine.” 

“So what? Love saves the fucking day? We hold hands and sing kumbaya and I don’t set this bomb?” 

“If you want.” 

“And what if it’s not?” 

Jason doesn’t leave Dick space for an answer, just surges forward and presses their lips together in something that’s half-kiss, half blow to the face. His hands tangle in Dick’s hair and pull. 

“You’re mine,” Jason says, pressing their foreheads together and gripping his hair harder. “I’m in your bloodstream now, and I’m going to fucking ruin you.” 

Dick’s hands go to his shoulders, gripping on like a drowning man. 

“You’re so tall now. You’re...you’re so beautiful, Jay. I’m so sorry,” Dick says. “I should’ve been there sooner. Hell, I should’ve said something once I realized. Before…” 

Before Jason had died. 

“But I didn’t. And I didn’t save you. But I want to. Please just--” 

Jason cuts him off. 

“I’m beyond saving, Dickiebird.” He pulls back, punctuates it with a fist to the face. He’s gone before Dick wakes up.


End file.
